Hawaii Death Toll, Hunter Biden Special Counsel, Wisconsin's Top Court
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At least eighty people have dialed in the wild fires in hawaii.

Residents say they have nowhere .

to fully here. I really felt every corner where we had just come from was on fire.

I'm Scott lemon.

I'm my shark. O, and this is up first from M P R news.

The justice department appoints a special councell to investigate president biden.

sun hunter biden, even though the attorney general said before one was unnecessary .

that two weeks after a plea deal .

fell apart in wisconsin, fight among justices on the state .

supreme court beral .

majority stice a servais is calling IT a cool.

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The island of mali continues to burn .

and hundreds of people remain missing .

in persition. To rose is in mediation. Thanks for being with this morning.

Such difficult news. Please tell us about the latest developments. Let's got .

multiple wildfires are continuing to burn around the island, but things are a bit more under control than they were earlier in the week. Residents in affected areas are being allowed back into their neighborhoods if they can show proof that they live there. But sadly, some of them are returning to find only the remains of their homes. There are daily confused ten P M to six am in the burn areas. And I should point out that in the western part of the island, there are still no power, no water, and there isn't expected to be for some time.

I understand you visited shelter there in khou. I could you tell us about that?

Let's coat. This is an impromptu elder at the mi high school, started by volunteers from the community and from the school itself. So the gym, like most school jeans, has a shower for folks where they can clean up their cots, set up for sleeping, they're handing out food, making sure everyone is hydroid.

It's been really hot here. Friday was eighty five degrees and quite humid. They also have about three hundred people staying there.

And the red cross has started to take over running things. California resident vesta song was vacation in here with her daughter when the fires broke out. SHE also happens to be a trained red cross volunteer.

It's easy. Have this bottle next. And I know for myself, I can feel really fearful because there's no escape when there's fires in an orange county, you know, california big, I want to go another state to escape, right? But here I really fell. Every corner where we had just come from was on fire.

No, it's got an example of that botnet. A bad traffic accident yesterday shut down access to the western burn areas for much of friday afternoon, even for rescue workers. Now this shelter is in transition as things are becoming a IT more organized. That's creating some frustration for those folks who came earlier in the week just to a volunteer to help out when I was a community effort.

And wife frustration ation. Well, you know.

on wednesday and thursday, folks showed up. They brought food, they brought water. Doctors came to see if people needed help, but now they have to go through official channels to volunteer. We spoke with one doctor who'd been helping earlier in the week, but by friday he was being told, no, you have to go register with the red cross, and it's not that easy to talk with victims or volunteers. Reporters aren't allowed in the shelter. But we did speak with one of that guy outside who showed as videos on her phone of how quickly the fire escalated in just a matter of minutes, SHE and her boyfriend got out safely.

but their home was completely destroyed. Action from the conversation you have been able to have. How do people seem to be coding up?

Well, people are tired, their visibly tired. Their voices are tired. Volunteers are tired and sad. And, you know, this is just beginning since many people at the shelter aren't waiting to go back home because they no longer have homes to go back to.

But I want to tell you about this wonderful moment of lightness friday afternoon, with the shelter out in front of the gym. There people have said at the little play area for kids with their toys and games, and at one point, in the midst of all this tragedy and destruction and death, someone brought a bubble machine. So the whole front of school jam was covered with these tiny bubbles floating in the air, and you could see the little kids dancing for joy.

What a beautiful moment imperishable rose in mary. Thanks so much.

You welcome Scott.

Attorney general mark garland says a special count make sure the case against hunter biden is guided only by facts in the law that being .

the president, sun is apparently headed to trial after all, and pair just as correspond Carry Johnson joins us Carry things for being with us.

Happy to be here. Scott.

please tell us about David voice, this person who is now the special council.

Well, he's a holdover U. S. Turning from delaware, initially appointed by former president Donald trump. And he's the same guy who's been investigating hunter biden since nineteen nineteen.

The difference now is that a special council, he will write a report explaining his decisions about charging people or declining to charge people. And he's going to Operate outside of day to dates supervision from the justice department leaders. But they can override his decisions if they think they're inappropriate. The trick there is that congress will learn about any of those over rights eventually and cry if.

if, if he was already on the job in this investigation, why they need to become a special council.

That's not entirely clear. The justice department doesn't tell us who they are investigating or or what, but the appointment, paperwork, references and investigation of counter biden, among others, and attorney general mark girl in told us Whites had reached a stage in the investigation where becoming a special council was necessary Carry.

What happened to the hand biden plea deal? I'd looked to be in place and then something changed.

Yeah, things went wrong last month of federal judge and delivery question, the terms of the deal, specifically whether IT conveyed a kind of broad immunity hunter biden over his business dealings and foreign lobbying. So prosecutors said no, and lawyers for hunter biden said, yes. There was no meeting of the minds yesterday.

Prosecutors said they remained in in past. They said there is no plea deal. So this agreement for hunting and pleaded guilty to tax charges and enter a diversion program for a gun charge now seems to be dead right now. Unless something big happens, IT seems this case could be headed for trial. Of course.

president biden is running for reelection at at the same time how I was the White house responding to the news of a special council.

the White house is declining comment. Hunter biden s lawyer says nothing has changed in their view now that there's a special council, he says they expect a quote, fair resolution not infected by politics and former president trump got online to he accused the justice department yesterday without any evidence of protecting john hunter biden.

Even though the justice Robin is now investigating them, both republicans in congress have been demanding that prosecutors take action against one hundred biden. Now they say the special council move is designed as stonewall their investigations. But for what its work, special councils do regularly testify before congress, but only after their work is done.

and present a trip at another day in court. Yesterday, carey tell us about that place.

busy day. This is the case against trump trying to overturn the twenty twenty election that culminated in the capital riot. Judge tiny, a chat can impose a protective order to limit how much trump can talk about sensitive documents they will get in the course of the case.

She's worried about him, potentially intimate witnesses and polluting the jury pool. Here in dc, the judge says down, trump does have first amendment rights, but he is subject to restrictions like any other criminal defended and SHE warned everyone to be careful in their public statements before trial. A message to the defense that making inflaming reMarks could actually lead to having a trial and dc sooner rather than later to minimize prejudicial statements of the potential jurors might hear.

Respondent kerry Johnson, thanks so much.

My pleasure.

It's been less than two weeks, says Janet proto. Switz was sworn into the top court in wisconsin reelection in April.

gave liberals a slim majority on the panel for the first time in fifteen years.

So far, the session has been very messy. My own silver of W U W M and moai joints. Now welcome.

Hi isa.

So as we mention, the new liberal majority has only been in power for a short time and and already there's been, I guess how how can we save this drama? Tell us about what's going on.

right? So the liberal majority release started reshaping the court administrative vely. Within days of taking control, they fired the director of state courts who was appointed by conservatives. They limited the power of the conservative chief justice.

They opened up administrative of meetings to the public, and they set up a committee to establish racial rules that when a judge that's out the case because conflict, liberal justices say they're just making things more transparent. But conservatives have really responded with bitterness. One conservative justice actually tweet that there's a quote, a ball of extreme leftists now running the court.

The chief justice in its ega, who's a conservative, called IT a cool unconservative talk radio. Meanwhile, liberal justice rebeck dela issued a press release in response and said they've repeatedly asked the chief justice to join them in meetings, but she's refused. So keep in mind, this is all playing out very publicly in press releases and comments to the media.

So what's the problem with the liberal justice making changes now that they have the majority? Is this just our grapes? Or do the conservative justices have grounds for their objections? So some .

observers say that really liberals aren't doing anything that conservatives wouldn't do if the tables were turned. The real problem here isn't all this back and forth. It's really the acrimony and partisanship on the court. I talked to barry burden about this. He's the director of the elections research project at uw medicine .

public trust in the court. And you, the willingness to accept its decisions is going to be lower and much more partisan in the reaction that we see. This is true of the U. S. Supreme court as well and was cause I think we're likely to see a similar sort of polarization of public reactions play out.

In the meantime, burton says IT, just be good for the justices to get in a room face to face, maybe stop tweet and issuing press releases. They really have a lot of important work to do.

a lot of important work to do IT IT. Seems like the court does have some really big cases to decide this term. Remind us what's coming up.

I said there are big, big topics we're talking. Redistricting, election laws, abortion. Three of the most contested issues across the country that are gonna be before the court soon returns.

The one were really watching because that has a tight deadline. The case would have to be decided by midd next year for those new districts to be in place before the general election. That could have big implications for the baLance of power in the state legislature, which has been controlled by conservatives for quite a while.

In wisconsin, there's already two lawsuits filed within two weeks of the new court. There's also a lawsuit making its way through the system over wisconsin's near total abortion ban. And then, of course, election laws will be important because wisconsin is such a narrow swing state, it's click to say that every vote counts. But here we really mean .

that that's my own silver in malawi. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

And that at first for a saturday, August twelve, twenty twenty three.

i'm Scott and i'm assa tomorrow .

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